on the errors of the trinity

Michael Serve­tus : On The Errors of the Trinity

Michael Serve­tus was born in Vil­lanue­va in Spain in 1511. He was the son of the local judge. He lived at a time when there was unrest in the estab­lished Church, and in a peri­od when every­one was ques­tion­ing the nature of Chris­tian­i­ty. As he grew old­er and more informed, the young Serve­tus was appalled by the shed­ding of blood by the Chris­tians towards the Mus­lims and Jews. 

Imag­ine his excite­ment when, upon exam­in­ing the Bible more close­ly, he found that the doc­trine of Trin­i­ty was nowhere a part of its teach­ing. He fur­ther dis­cov­ered that the Bible did not always sup­port what was being taught by the Church.

Michael Serve­tus wrote to the lead­ers of the Ref­or­ma­tion, Calvin and Luther, in the hopes that the Protes­tant move­ment will turn Uni­tar­i­an. Alas, the minds of the lead­ers of the Ref­or­ma­tion were still trapped in the false meta­physics. He found that both Luther and Calvin will have noth­ing to do with his belief in the Uni­ty of God.

Ori­gin of On The Errors of the Trinity” 

Serve­tus trav­elled to look for those who were open-mind­ed enough to lis­ten to what he was sure was the true Chris­tian­i­ty as taught by Jesus, and even had a cor­re­spon­dence with Calvin. How­ev­er, all his attempts to influ­ence peo­ple by per­son­al con­tact failed. Sev­er­tus lat­er pro­ceed­ed to pub­lish his views in a book which he called On The Errors of Trin­i­ty”.

The result was that the Church hound­ed Serve­tus from one place to anoth­er. Serve­tus was lat­er cap­tured in Gene­va, found guilty of heresy at his tri­al, and was exe­cut­ed by being tied to the trunk of a tree and burned on the 26th of Octo­ber, 1553.

Excerpts From On The Errors of the Trinity”

A few excerpts from On The Errors of the Trin­i­ty, which caused such vio­lent actions, fol­lows.1

Serve­tus writes :

The philoso­phers have invent­ed a third sep­a­rate being tru­ly and real­ly dis­tinct from the oth­er two, which they have called the third Per­son or the Holy Spir­it, and thus they have con­trived an imag­i­nary Trin­i­ty, three beings in one nature. But in real­i­ty, three Gods, or one three­fold God, are foist­ed upon us under the pre­tence, and in the name of Unity…For with them it is very easy, tak­ing the words in their strict sense, for three beings to exist, which they say and yet strict­ly, sim­ply, and real­ly, so dif­fer­ent or dis­tinct yet one is born of anoth­er, and yet all these three are shut up in one jar. Since I am unwill­ing to mis­use the word Per­sons, I shall call them the first being, the sec­ond being and the third being, for in the Scrip­ture I find no oth­er name for them…Admitting, there­fore, these three, which after their fash­ion they call Per­sons, they freely admit a plu­ral­i­ty of beings, a plu­ral­i­ty of enti­ties, a plu­ral­i­ty of Essences, a plu­ral­i­ty of sub­stances, and tak­ing the word of God strict­ly, they will have a plu­ral­i­ty of Gods.

He con­tin­ues :

If this is so, then why the Tri­torites are blamed, who say that there are three Gods, for they also con­trive three Gods or one three­fold one. These three­fold Gods of theirs form one com­pos­ite sub­stance. And although some will not use the word imply­ing that these three have been put togeth­er, yet they do use a word that they are con­sti­tut­ed togeth­er and that God is con­sti­tut­ed out of three beings. It is clear there­fore that they are Tri­to­ries and we have a three­fold God. We have become Athe­ists, man with­out any God. For as soon as we try to think about God, we are turned aside to three phan­toms, so that no kind of uni­ty remains in our con­cep­tion. What else is being with­out God but being unable to think about God, when there is always present to our under­stand­ing a haunt­ing kind of con­fu­sion of three beings, by which we are for­ev­er delud­ed into sup­pos­ing that we are think­ing about God…They seem to be liv­ing in anoth­er world when they dream of such things for the king­dom of heav­ens knows none of this non­sense and it is in anoth­er way unknown to them, that Scrip­ture speaks of the Holy Spirit.

He adds :

How much this tra­di­tion of Trin­i­ty has alas, alas ! been the laugh­ing stock of Mohamme­dons only God knows. The Jews also shrink from giv­ing adher­ence to this fan­cy of ours, and laugh at our fool­ish­ness about the Trin­i­ty, and on account of its blas­phemies, they do not believe that this is the Mes­si­ah promised in their Law. And not only the Mohamme­dons and the Hebrews, but the very beasts of the field would make fun of us, did they grasp our fan­tas­tic notion, for all the work­ers of the Lord bless the One God…This most burn­ing plague, there­fore, was added and super­im­posed, as it were, on the new gods which have recent­ly come, which our fathers did not wor­ship. And this plague of phi­los­o­phy was brought upon us by the Greeks, for they above all men are most giv­en to phi­los­o­phy ; and we, hang­ing upon their lips, have become philoso­phers, and they nev­er under­stood the pas­sages of the Scrip­tures which they adduced with regard to this matter.

Serve­tus also stressed what he believed to be the true nature of Jesus :

Some are scan­dalised at my call­ing Christ the prophet because they hap­pen not them­selves to apply to him the epi­thet, they fan­cy that all who do so are charge­able with Judaism and Mohametism, regard­less of the fact that the Scrip­tures and ancient writ­ers call him the prophet.

Con­clu­sions

The writ­ings of Michael Serve­tus’ On The Errors of the Trin­i­ty cer­tain­ly shows that there are those who call them­selves Chris­tians and are yet not blind­ed by the faults of the Trini­tar­i­an dog­ma. One would no doubt won­der why the Church resort­ed to per­se­cut­ing Michael Serve­tus and his anti-Trini­tar­i­an writ­ings instead of debat­ing about it in a schol­ar­ly man­ner if the Church is cer­tain that the doc­trine is undis­putable and is indeed an inher­ent part of the Chris­t­ian faith.Endmark

Cite this arti­cle as : Mohd Elfie Nieshaem Juferi, Michael Serve­tus : On The Errors of the Trin­i­ty,” in Bis­mi­ka Allahu­ma, Sep­tem­ber 19, 2005, last accessed March 29, 2024, https://​bis​mikaal​lahu​ma​.org/​c​h​r​i​s​t​i​a​n​i​t​y​/​o​n​-​t​h​e​-​e​r​r​o​r​s​-​o​f​-​t​h​e​-​t​r​i​n​i​ty/
  1. As repro­duced & adapt­ed from Muham­mad Ata ur-Rahim, Jesus A Prophet of Islam, pp. 112 – 121[]

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5 responses to “Michael Serve­tus : On The Errors of the Trinity”

  1. Nick R Avatar
    Nick R

    As many as are led by the Spir­it, they are the sons of God.

  2. fred viviers Avatar
    fred viviers

    Michael Serve­tus was not a Reformer but a prophet of the Holy God of Israel and that is why all the Reform­ers was against him. He was lead by the Spir­it of Christ to know the Mys­tery of the God­li­ness as wit­ness in 1 Tim­o­thy 3:16. Michael Serve­tus was as all the writ­ers of the Holy Bible to know the mys­tery of Christ. The Holy Bible was writ­ten with the hands of men but with the mind of Christ as wit­ness in 1 Peter 1:11 and 2 Peter 1:21 and with­out the Holy Spir­it of Christ you will be in error as wit­ness in 2 Peter 2:1. Christ was the God in the O/​T and N/​T wit­ness in 1 Cor 10:3 – 5 and that must take you to Acts 2:38 to know God’s Name of sal­va­tion as promised in Is 12:2 – 6. There is only One God with Three man­i­fes­ta­tions and not three per­sons as what 1 Peter 1:11 wit­ness. Now read Col 1:4 – 29 Col 2:1 – 10 1:15 Christ is the image of God because God is a Spir­it. John1:24. Where is the Pow­er and the wis­dom of God. Read 1 Cor 1:24. After you read that you must see what Thomas saw in John 20 :27 – 28 when his spir­i­tu­al eyes opened. This is the same God of Zech 12:10 to be One God with a Name as wit­ness in Zech 14:9 and Eph 4:4 – 5. Where as the Spir­it of God when Jesus Christ was cru­ci­fied ? Inside this body called Jesus to make Him the Christ as wit­ness in Heb 9:14. We are saved by the Blood of God as wit­ness in Acts 20:28 – 30. Mic­ah 4:5. God is not a Name, the word God” only mean object of wor­ship” and Jesus Christ” is His Name of Sal­va­tion and read that in Acts 4:12. Now I want to reveal to you this mys­tery how this God of the Holy Bible will look like when you will see Him in heav­en. Now read 2 Cor 4:2 – 6 and be a wit­ness of Jesus Christ to be your God of sal­va­tion. Now in REVELATION the rev­e­la­tion of Jesus Christ to what He IS. Rev 21:6 – 7. You can put your name on the trin­i­ty beliefs in your denom­i­na­tion church but your name would be tak­en out of the Book of Life ACCORDING TO REV 221819. So help us Lord Jesus Christ to see you with our spir­i­tu­al eyes accord­ing to John 3:3. You must be born again with His Holy Spir­it in you to spir­i­tu­al rev­e­la­tions. I know that one day I must be like Michael Serve­tus that will be hat­ed by all these denom­i­na­tion church­es of this world with the Moth­er church of Rev 17:1 – 18. 17:14 Jesus Christ is Lord of lords. Michael Serve­tus name was writ­ten in the Holy Bible and you can read that in Rev 17:5 – 7. The protes­tants is the Daugh­ters of the Roman Catholic church and they killed him for the true Word of God as what the true saints was killed for. Lord Jesus Christ open the eyes of them that read John 5:39 and search the Holy Scrip­tures for the true rev­e­la­tion of who You real­ly are.

  3. LongLiveKingJesus Avatar
    LongLiveKingJesus

    Unfor­tu­nate­ly the remarks of this 16th cen­tu­ry schol­ar has dra­mat­ic cat­e­gor­i­cal errors in the sense that it sees the new tes­ta­ment writ­ings in the light of the very world­views that dis­agree with it. For in such way He rep­re­sents the Trin­i­ty is that of error. The way He knows of the trin­i­ty is not point­ed by the very things in scrip­ture but rather he is try­ing to apply a world­view that falls away from the scrip­tures. For when apply­ing the premise mis­us­ing the word per­sons” he is active­ly ignor­ing the very def­i­n­i­tion of the Trin­i­ty for with­in the cir­cu­lar rea­son­ing of his argu­ment, by doing so, he is forc­ing the the doc­trine to fall with­in itself. It is quite shal­low and unfair, the way he is able to put con­straints on the use of Per­sons” with­out a rea­son but just a cheap way to attack a world­view that he unfor­tu­nate­ly does not under­stand and rep­re­sents unfair­ly. Poor arguementation.

  4. David Rooseboom Avatar
    David Rooseboom

    Yes,I agree with Bis­mi­ka Allahuma,That Jesus or Joshua was anoth­er Prophet of God.He def­i­nite­ly was­n’t a son of the Almighty whatsoever.
    He has been always a peace maker,and he did­n’t want to start any kind of rebel­lion against the Roman Occu­piers of Judea.Instead he drew huge crowds, wher­ev­er he trav­elled and served main­ly in Galilee area​.At times he went to Jerusalem,and there, he had argu­ments with the rul­ing class­es of the Temple,disagreeing at the way they have been behav­ing towards the poor­er peo­ple of the city.
    There had been cas­es where some of the Roman Sol­diers had end­ed up going A.W.O.L.by leav­ing the army and fol­low­ing him instead.Because they were so impressed by the way Jesus always talked about peace instead of an upris­ing against Rome​.So in a way, he did upset the Roman Mil­i­tary Estab­lish­ment by slow­ly deplet­ing their army of sol­diers in Judea and the Galilee.

  5. shadowofears Avatar
    shadowofears

    Chris­t­ian schol­ars today read­i­ly rec­og­nize the fact that for the first three decades C.E., Chris­tian­i­ty” remained a sect with­in Judaism and that the first fif­teen Bish­ops of Chris­tian­i­ty were cir­cum­cised Jews who wor­shipped in the syn­a­gogues of the Jews. We have seen how it was only after the intro­duc­tion of Chris­tian­i­ty to the Romans and the offi­cial guardian­ship” of the Roman empire of the reli­gion of Jesus that it began to see many of the truths” of the mis­sion of Jesus which were hid­den from the very first apos­tles of Jesus . We have seen how the Trin­i­ty,” the birth of Jesus on the 25th of Decem­ber, the East­er fes­ti­val and many oth­er found­ing doc­trines of Chris­tian­i­ty were not rec­og­nized to be the truth” until after the reli­gion of Jesus was adopt­ed by those peo­ple who for many cen­turies before that had been spoon fed the doc­trines of Trin­i­ty,” sav­ior from sin,” incar­na­tion of the Almighty,” death and res­ur­rec­tion,” Christ­mas and East­er, three days and three nights in hell,” only begot­ten of the almighty,” killed by the ene­my,” and many oth­er mat­ters which were lat­er inspired” to them by God in order to be clar­i­fied” in the Bible so that they could be seen clearly.

    Sad­ly enough, once all of this detailed evi­dence has been pre­sent­ed by West­ern schol­ars in sup­port of the fact that all of these mat­ters were acts of pagan wor­ship and belief cen­turies before the com­ing of Jesus, even with all of this, the adamant ortho­dox will ever man­age to find a way out. It is quite sim­ple real­ly,” they will explain, All of these count­less pagan cults from all over the earth must have had pri­or knowl­edge of the com­ing of Jesus and insert­ed the sto­ry of his life into pagan mythol­o­gy cen­turies before his actu­al arrival.”

    The great and elect mes­sen­ger of Allah, Jesus the son of Mary (peace be upon them both), is inno­cent of these pagan inno­va­tions which have been foist­ed upon him after his depar­ture by those who did not fear God. He was a true mes­sen­ger of God and would nev­er dare to say oth­er­wise. God is One. Peri­od!. He is indi­vis­i­ble and insep­a­ra­ble. There is no God but He. He has no sons nor any equal. He does not hold mankind respon­si­ble for the sin of oth­ers, but only for their own wor­ship. And God alone shall be the final judge of all of mankind on the Day of Judgment.

    There are many oth­er par­al­lels that could be brought up in this com­par­i­son. How­ev­er, we can not get into the details here, there­fore, it shall be left up to the inter­est­ed read­er to read about them in the books men­tioned above, or in the book Mohammed A Proph­esy Ful­filled,” by H. Abdul Al-Dahir, which I rec­om­mend highly.

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